Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Fisheries Exploitation in the Indian Ocean Region
- PART I Fisheries Policy Frameworks
- 2 Environmental Security and Biodiversity: Critical Policy Themes and Issues
- 3 Overview of Institutional Arrangements for Fisheries and Marine Biodiversity in the Indian Ocean
- 4 A Policy Framework for Fisheries Conflicts in the Indian Ocean
- 5 The Indian Ocean Fishery: Resources and Exploitation Within and Outside National Jurisdictional Limits
- 6 Competing Claims to Maritime Jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean: Implications for Regional Marine Biodiversity and Fisheries
- Part II Fisheries Resource Exploitation
- Part III Fisheries Policy Directions
- Index
3 - Overview of Institutional Arrangements for Fisheries and Marine Biodiversity in the Indian Ocean
from PART I - Fisheries Policy Frameworks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Fisheries Exploitation in the Indian Ocean Region
- PART I Fisheries Policy Frameworks
- 2 Environmental Security and Biodiversity: Critical Policy Themes and Issues
- 3 Overview of Institutional Arrangements for Fisheries and Marine Biodiversity in the Indian Ocean
- 4 A Policy Framework for Fisheries Conflicts in the Indian Ocean
- 5 The Indian Ocean Fishery: Resources and Exploitation Within and Outside National Jurisdictional Limits
- 6 Competing Claims to Maritime Jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean: Implications for Regional Marine Biodiversity and Fisheries
- Part II Fisheries Resource Exploitation
- Part III Fisheries Policy Directions
- Index
Summary
This chapter will focus on the institutional aspects of fisheries and biodiversity in the Indian Ocean. It is intended to provide a background to the more specialist discussions that follow in later chapters. It is proposed to deal, first, though only very briefly, with the international legal background to the modern fisheries regime, and its slow recognition of the importance of biodiversity. Unfortunately, many of the provisions in the modern law of the sea that concern fisheries and marine biodiversity are still being implemented only in a piecemeal way.
THE MODERN LEGAL BACKGROUND
The 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereafter referred to as the 1982 U.N. Convention) as we know was very short on high seas fisheries issues and biodiversity. The high seas fisheries provisions were so sparse that they had to be supplemented by another Agreement thirteen years later. The closest that the 1982 U.N. Convention came to addressing biodiversity was in the preamble where it called for the “conservation” of marine living resources, as well as the recognition that “the problems of ocean space are interrelated and need to be considered as a whole”. In the substantive articles, Article 61, when dealing with conservation, merely said:
…the coastal State shall take into consideration the effects on species associated with or dependent on harvested species with a view to restoring populations of such species above levels at which their reproduction may become seriously threatened. (Art 61.4. See to similar effect Art 119.1 on the high seas.)
This was backed up by a general obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment set out in Part XII of the 1982 U.N. Convention. However, these provisions did not add up to a substantial contribution or commitment regarding biodiversity.
The principal contribution of the 1982 U.N. Convention was to introduce the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) regime that to a large extent settled the controversy over the legal character of the EEZ.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fisheries Exploitation in the Indian OceanThreats and Opportunities, pp. 39 - 53Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak InstitutePrint publication year: 2009